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Home , Ciudad Victoria, Tamaulipas

ASSESSMENT OF URBAN LAND USE COVER CHANGES IN , ,

S. Anderson a, *, M. Taylor a, P. Sutton a, M. Steinberg b

a Department of , of Denver, 2050 E. Iliff Ave, Denver, CO 80208 (sander24, mtaylor7, psutton)@du.edu b Department of Geography and Anthropology, Louisiana State University, 227 Howe-Russell Geoscience Complex, Baton Rouge, LA 70803-4105 - [email protected]

KEY WORDS: change detection, urban, remote sensing

ABSTRACT:

Ciudad Victoria, Tamaulipas witnessed increase from less than 84,000 in 1970 to almost 250,000 in 2000, producing almost a 200% growth within the city. This expansion has changed the land cover of the over the past three decades. This quantifies land use and land cover change (LUCC) in Ciudad Victoria. The research is part of a larger study which focuses on human migration patterns and their impacts on land use within the state of Tamaulipas. This section of the research project utilizes both physical and cultural data sets. Satellite imagery from the mid-1970’s, 1980’s, 1990’s and 2000 are processed in order to quantify LUCC in the area. The remotely sensed data set used includes North American Landscape Characterization Landsat Pathfinder Project (NALC project), data from Landsat MSS, Landsat TM, and more recent data from Landsat ETM+. In an effort to better understand the dynamics of land cover change through time, this research first explored a number of standard change detection techniques. In addition, to the image processing techniques which identify change, land cover characteristics were analyzed. This research was completed to identify the techniques that best isolate the changes in this urban environment. Remotely sensed data and results of change analysis are augmented by fieldwork and demographic data to help explain LUCC.

1. INTRODUTION understanding the relationship between growing human population and their environment. Specifically, we look at the World population multiplied at least ten-fold in the city of Ciudad Victoria in the state of Tamaulipas, Mexico. last four hundred years and now more than six billion people That first step entails documenting how much space an rely on the earth’s resources. Conservative estimates place expanding population occupies and how that space is then used. nearly an additional two billion people on our earth before we In other words, we want to understand land use and land cover reach the end of this century’s first quarter. change. Undeniably, six billion humans use more resources, This task of documenting and understanding how the occupy more space, and cause more environmental change than growing of urban and peri-urban areas use their the mere six hundred million souls of 1600. The evidence of space and resources is important when viewed in just the human impacts on the environment appears in everyday slightly larger context of the Mexican State of Tamaulipas. A discourse. Common perceptions that humans and their mere 50 km to the south of Ciudad Victoria lies the El Cielo consumption negatively impact the environment rely on a Biosphere Reserve. Designated by the United Nations in 1987 growing body of scientific case studies. The pages of many under the Man and the Biosphere program, this reserve is a academic journals are filled with case studies where expanding 356,872-acre site stretching from the eastern to the western human populations degrade, displace, and extirpate natural flora slopes of the . The reserve's and . is among the highest in the world because it lies on the climate The search for solutions that lessen human impact on transitional zone between North and Central America. With the environment rides high on agendas in the developing world elevations from 650 to 7,500 feet above sea level, El Cielo where natural population growth far outpaces growth rates in includes four distinct eco-systems: tropical jungle, mountain the developed world. Our emphasis on population and resource forest, pine-oak forest, and dwarf oak and heath forest. How problems in the developing world also springs from our will the growing population of Ciudad Victoria impinge upon knowledge of documented trends and predictions that per capita the resources of this reserve? Yes, El Cielo is sufficiently consumption of resources will increase rapidly to levels removed from Ciudad Victoria to avoid the direct impacts of approaching per capita consumption in the developed world. A the growing city to the north. But what impacts will the focus on the developing world is also pertinent because demand for resources by residents of the city have on the problems there are not isolated to that region – environmental, reserve (e.g., firewood for lower income residents, lumber for economic, and political problems create massive migrant construction, unique flora and fauna for household adornment, heading to developed areas of the world. We no longer and simply increased visitation to the reserve by urban residents live in a world of “us and them.” Rather, population and escaping the city)? This is an increasingly important question resource issues on one side of the globe impinge directly on in the world today as we attempt to preserve the vestiges of livelihoods thousands of miles away. Millions of international biodiversity in the face of rising human use of the world’s migrants fleeing resource-poor lives drive this point home. natural resources. In this case study of a rapidly growing urban area in northeastern Mexico, then, we take the first step in

* Corresponding author.

In this research project, though, we take the first step 3.2 Methodology in understanding the complex relationships between humans and their environment. We investigate the type of land cover The methods explored in this research include change detection change associated with a growing city in the developing part of technique of image differencing, image classification, and the world and also explore the best methods to detect that principle component analysis. A change. 3.3 Change Detection Techniques 2. STUDY AREA 3.3.1 Image Differencing: Image differencing is based on 2.1 Cuidad Victoria, Tamaulipas subtracting two different time periods of the same location or scene. It is a simple process of subtracting the two different of the state of Tamaulipas is Ciudad Victoria with a times pixel by pixel to create the difference image. In this case, population close to 250,000 residents. The city is strategically a difference image was created between the Normalized located in the center of the state in a valley lying at the foot of Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) images. The difference the Sierra Madre Oriental range. The city has an elevation of image from 1970 to 2000 shows the reduction of vegetation in 320 m (1050 ft) and covers a little over 12 km x 12 km. The the urban growth area. There was an increase in NDVI values major land use land cover change (LUCC) from agricultural to (vegetation ) surrounding the urban areas, which may be urban via residential and commercial developments. This is one attributed to the 2000 being a winter scene. of the fastest growing cities in Mexico. The city population has continued to increase with an explosion from less than 84,000 in 1970 to almost 250,000 in 2000, producing almost a 200% growth within the city.

3. DATA AND METHODS

3.1 Data

The data used for the project were obtained from Tropical Rain Forest Information Center (TRFIC). This included North American Landcover Data (NALC) Triplicate data generation of 60 m Lansat MSS scenes covering the urban boundaries and south to include El Cielo Biosphere Reserve. In addition to the three MSS scenes, a more recent Landsat ETM+ scene was acquired (Table 1).

Sensor Acquired Date General Date Figure 1: Difference Image between 1970 and 2000 MSS May 27, 1973 1970 MSS March 14, 1986 1980 Image Classification: In order to look at the changes in TM April 7, 1992 1990 different LULC between the four decades each scene was ETM+ Dec 9, 2000 2000 classified into four classes. A NDVI layer was added to each scene for a total of five layers for the classifications. An DEM June 29, 1995 unsupervised classification (Isodata) of four class was run on Table 1. North American Landscape Characterization and the urban subset images. All classes were assessed using the Landsat ETM+ Transformed Jefferies test, to verify that they were spectrally

different and separable. The four classes were interpreted to be Although these scenes were taken with different sensors on representative of Urban, Modified, Pasture, and Forest. These different platforms, the data were geographically reference to a were spectrally separable however the land use were mixed. Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) ground coordinate grid The basic pixel counts through time are shown in Table 2. of 60 m. The referencing is part of the NALC Triplicate

Processing Steps, specifics provided at http://edc.usgs.gov/products/satellite/nalc.html . The ETM+ 1970 1980 1990 2000 scene was purchased as L1G format which was geographically Urban 7590 8037 8407 10803 referenced to the UTM coordinate grid. The NALC data was Modified 12431 13646 9544 16603 clipped to remove the embedded headers. All scenes were Pasture 13441 12235 21922 12687 atmospherically corrected using ATCOR3 which removed the haze and most topographic effects. Additionally, the 2000 Forest 8768 8312 2357 2137 ETM+ image was resampled to 60m using nearest neighbor. Table 2: Pixel Count for Unsupervised Classification of subset Cuidad Victoria area was clipped from each of the scenes images. (Figure 1). A supervised classification was preformed. The selected five Other supporting data were population data for the census years class were tested for their separability and they were separable. of 1970, 1980, 1990, and 2000. These were used for However, this method of classification was not valuable as comparative study of area and population estimates based on there were no training sites. The selected training areas were DML OSP (Pick, J. B., et al. 1989; INEGI, Sutton et. al. 2001). interpreted from the images. Since there field work will be In addition, field visit is scheduled March 2005 to gather done later one this method may be revisited with valid ground reference data. data to use as the training sites.

3.3.2 Principle Component Analysis: A NDVI image consisting of a NDVI layer for each year. Each layer was stretched to 0-255 (8-bit). A PCA image was created with four component layers. These layers represented the variance within the NDVI values over the four decades. The fourth component represents about 10 percent of the variance. This component isolates the urban area.

3.3.3 Polygons of Urban Areas: An on-screen digitizing of the urban areas for 1970, 1980, 1990, and 2000 was preformed. Using the unsupervised classification images as the base data polygons surround the urban areas were created in ArcGIS. These polygons were used to get the area. Although the area could be calculated using the pixel count the low resolution of the MSS created less than desirable results. It was decided that polygons would offer a more accurate area than the pixel counts. There is however a close relationship between the classified pixel counts and the digitized area. Figure 3: Scatterplot of Natural Log of Derived Urban Area 4. RESULTS and Natural Log of Population

The difference image from 1970 and 2000 was created with all pixels that had at least a 10 percent change in NDVI value. The 5. CONCLUSIONS/FINAL REMARKS area that decreased by 10 or more is shown in Figure 2. This area consists of 4505 pixels which is about 30 percent higher The objective of this project was to isolate the LUCC in Cuidad than the changes in the pixel counts from the classified images Victoria using the NALC data set. The change techniques were (3212 pixels). The decrease in NDVI values is concentrated in able to identify that there were major changes occurring in the the urban center; however, the agricultural areas had differences city area. The difference image isolated the areas of decrease in not due to LUCC but the acquisition dates. NDVI which were greatest within the urban expansion. The classified images show promise once there is adequate reference data. There were significant differences between the spectral responses of the four classes. This indicates that once a supervised classification can be preformed a quantitative analysis can be preformed. The PCA images were also able to isolate the changes. Component 2 isolated the riparian area which went through modifications during the time period. Component 4 was able to isolate the urban area better than any of the other techniques. This component was the basis for a Urban mask which will be used in an expert system to aid in a supervised classification when preformed. The most interesting results were with the high correlation to the outcome of comparing the population to either the DMSP OLS or Landsat derived urban areas. Ultimately, this study showed the need for multiple data sources when trying to identify the changes in LUCC. Using multiple sources of remotely sensed data to Figure 2: Decrease in NDVI between 1970 and 2000. monitor urban growth has great potential.

The classified images showed a consistent growth in the urban REFERENCES area. However, the lack of reference data resulted in just using the images a qualitative and support data. The urban areas and Instituto Nacional de Estadística, Geografía e Informática population data were compared to the estimates produced by (INEGI), SICAM 2001. CD-ROM. Sutton et. al. (2001). Figure 3 is a scatterplot of the natural log (http://www.inegi.gob.mx/inegi/default.asp) of the area of cities vs. the natural log of the population of cities. The square point represent Ciudad Victoria as measured by Landsat MSS and ETM from 1973 to 2000. The points Pick, J. B., E. W. Bulter, et al. (1989). Atlas of Mexico. represented by ‘X’s are the cities of Mexico as measured by the Boulder, CO, Westview Press: Population and urbanization. nighttime ‘city light’ composite derived from the Defense Meteorological Satellite Progam’s Operational Linescan System Sutton, P; Roberts, D; Elvidge, C; Baugh, K; (2001) Census (DMSP OLS) circa 1995. Use of DMSP OLS imagery has been from Heaven: An estimate of the global human population demonstrated as a means of estimating urban populations using nighttime satellite imagery International Journal of (Sutton 2001). Figure 3 shows that the same relationship can be Remote Sensing Vol 22 (16) pp 3061-3076 demonstrated with Landsat imagery. The relationship using only four temporal points was (Ln(pop) = 7.43 +1.06 Ln(Area) R2 = .91), whereas; the relationship using only the DMSP OLS derived points for all of Mexico’s cities circa 1995 was (Ln(Pop) = 7.27 + 1.03Ln(Area) R2 = 0.72).